


beast of a burden

by liquidsky



Series: shared [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:41:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23301814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidsky/pseuds/liquidsky
Summary: He drowned, once. This feels like that.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Series: shared [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679521
Comments: 19
Kudos: 84





	beast of a burden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Doodsxd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doodsxd/gifts).



> once upon a time, an asshole said to herself, "there is no such thing as writer's block." 
> 
> the asshole was wrong.
> 
> and i'm sad to say that the asshole was me.

He drowned, once. 

A few years back, California, flailing limbs and unfocused eyes staring up at the blazing sun, the burn of bitter sea water singeing his lungs. It couldn’t have lasted long, but Billy remembers time stretching to a sizeable eternity as he waited for his life to fizzle out like a cheap birthday candle. 

It didn’t, though, and afterwards he lay sideways hacking up a lung onto the sand, not wondering why no one had come for him, because he’d already been sick to death of knowing it. This feels like that. 

Sitting up in bed gasping at the insistent tug on his throat, Billy doesn’t bother flicking on the lamp. He knows the drill – three am sharp on the clock, night noisy outside his window. Prickling eyes and skin that feels nothing like his own, with hands too shaky to do more than push them down against the meat of his thigh until the lurching sensation fades into a quiet hum of pressure on his temples, a barely-there sting on his nostrils. It feels shitty and painful and like the least of his worries, because Billy’s not enough of an idiot not to have figured it out by now. Contrary to popular belief, Billy’s got a brain hidden under his flawless fucking hair, and he’s put it to good use in the last few months. 

His sweat-drenched sheets are stuck to his person when he struggles his way out of bed to stare out the window and light a fucking cigarette. Outside of his match-box apartment, Hawkins look every bit like the shithole it is, and Billy's pissed off that he can’t even find it in himself to really resent it. The fact that it’s a hellmouth has at least partially compensated him through making it real fucking easy to identify the number of households that enjoy the mighty privilege of owning a pool. Namely: one. He trespassed into the community pool a few days back, the lack of air in his lungs a ridiculous hazard to his jumping over the fence. Other than a couple of days-old joints and a few cans of shitty beer, Billy found jack shit. He broke his way into the school, too, stood by the side of the pool in the dark trying not to shiver. All it did was leave him cold and _disappointed_. He squints down at the road, now, at the dust bunnies rolling across the sidewalk, and it’s so fucking ridiculous that he’s left to wonder whether Steve knows someone can feel him, and how the fuck it is that he’s still doing it anyway. 

Intellectually, he’s clued-in that Steve’s not the only person at his house. There’s Steve’s mom, and even his dad, and a number of housekeepers that could be sneaking into the pool for these nightly drowning attempts, and yet he knows with the worst kind of certainty that it’s Steve he can feel. He’s had time to wonder whether Steve shares this same offbeat awareness, entirely overwhelming in the best of times, and Billy was mortified to find that he wanted it. He figures, if he has to stand here and feel this, the fucking least Steve can do is feel him right back. Billy’s annoyance, how much he fucking hates waking up to his body struggling to stay alive, drowning on air, on a whole lot of fucking nothing. 

Billy taps his cigarette on the glass twice before shucking it out the window, and when he turns it’s to stare at his unmade bed, and settle on the same decision he’s done every night. Maybe it’s stopped being a decision at all, for all he knows; he sprawls on his stomach, legs spread, arms up so he can bury his face in his sweaty pillow. It doesn’t smell like much of anything, but it’s easy to imagine that it smells like Steve, ripe with his post-game scent. Billy grinds forward, ass flexing as he pushes his dick against the mattress, hard already, easy, easy, easy. 

The problem is that Billy’s never been anything if he’s not insistent. If Steve wants to drag Billy into whatever shit he thinks he’s getting away with, Billy is happy enough to return the favor. Steve’s problems are his own, Billy thinks, and he can well fucking deal with them in his own time. Payback is easy, pushing his hips down, the shitty fabric of his sheets making it sort of hurt, rough on the soft skin of him. 

He thinks of Steve—Steve, Steve, Steve—hidden from the world and shaking apart, encapsulated by cool water. When Billy sucks his fingers into his mouth, licks around them messily until spit runs down his chin, he hopes Steve can feel it, too, the slick trail of saliva on his own face. Hopes Steve knows he doesn’t get to decide for both of them. Billy gets a say; he runs wet fingers up the back of his thighs, shivers, spreads himself open and pushes inside three at a time, laughing into his pillow at the pain. He pictures Steve, mile-long legs on each side of his fancy fucking recliner, back arching, dick straining against his pajamas. Sees Steve gasping as he shoves in further, feeling hot all over, dragging his dick against the sheets and twitching back into his own fingers until they’re snug inside far past the point of too much.

Billy gasps, and air comes so fucking easily he sighs again, rubs inside, a sizzling tension on his muscles that he gets lost in, muffling sounds on the pillow, laughing when he thinks of Steve. He makes it hurt for himself, starts trembling for another reason altogether. His heart’s beating fast enough he can feel it on his throat, an uncomfortable thudding, and Billy’s wet where he’s pushing into the mattress already. He says, quietly, “Harrington,” exhales a heavy puff of warm air that turns his pillowcase damp. Billy’s so sure Steve can feel it, that he has felt it, every night, the impossible stretch of Billy’s fingers inside him, inside both of them at once. No act of rebellion has ever felt quite as good as this, how languid and molten he turns as he touches himself. The burn in his muscles is nothing like the pain in his lungs, and he hopes Steve gets it. _You’re not hurting me,_ Billy thinks, even as he knows that Steve doesn’t mean to, and that, despite the dry insistence of his fingers, he’s not quite hurting Steve either. It doesn’t slither to him as sharply as the drowning, but he feels the reflection of his own movements run through him anyway. Not exactly a mirror, but something, and he clenches hard around his own fingers and shudders. He doesn’t move, and shudders again, certain that’s Steve now. 

He’s seeing him in four hours, watching him walk around looking fucked-out and sleepy, and he’ll know he did it. Whatever Steve’s doing to himself, and to Billy, he wants his spillover to be stronger, more discernible. He fucks his fingers in and out of himself hard, grunting loud enough he coughs, heat all over him, all over his back as if he was lying face-up, and the picture changes abruptly. Steve in his bedroom, fisting his dick under the covers, warm, sweaty, easy, easy, easy. Not drowning, but still gasping for breath. 

Billy comes with a muffled grunt, Steve’s name stuck to the back of his throat, and he knows it didn’t come from him—for the first time, Steve gets there first, and Billy laughs again, out of his mind. He drags his soft dick all over the wet spot, pulls his fingers out, and he can’t be sure who’s doing what to whom now, except he feels the hot drag of fingers down his chest where it’s stuck to the mattress, and he shoves his arm under his mouth and bites, not hard enough to draw blood but still violent. The touch stills, and Billy sighs. 

He feels it when Steve’s fallen asleep, half-sees the tangled mess of his dreams. The air’s cold when Billy breathes it in, twice before he feels the tingling on his fingertips that says Steve’s reaching for something. Billy doesn’t feel like sleeping, but he closes his eyes, splays his hands. Lets himself get lost in it, and he doesn’t hate it. 

He doesn’t love it, either, but he never thought he’d get one of these, and Steve, despite everything, is not the worst Billy could do. He hasn’t decided whether he thinks Steve deserves better. He figures there’s a fuckton they probably deserve, stuff they’re never getting anyway. For now, though, all Billy really wants is for Steve to stop drowning. Billy’s drowned enough.

**Author's Note:**

> unbeta'd, so all mistakes are my own, and if you'd like to let me know i'd appreciate it.


End file.
